Connecting to a Windows share from a Ubuntu machine using the Nautilus file manager

Even though I have moved over to using Ubuntu full time on my work machines, I still have one Windows machine on the network for maintaining some legacy code. I needed to copy a huge file over from the Ubuntu machine to the Windows PC, and rather than using a USB stick, I wanted to copy the file over the local network.

It turns out to be very easy to connect to a Windows share from within the Nautilus file manager, you first need to know the IP address of the Windows machine you want to connect to, and you can get this information by running the ipconfig command from a DOS command window.

Once you have the IP address of the windows machine, then the syntax you need to enter into the Nautilus Location field is :-

smb://ip address/share name/

Windows by default has a share name called c$, which will connect you to the C drive. So for example the full command on my network is :-

smb://192.168.1.101/c$/

In my case the Windows machine is also part of wider VPN network, so I am prompted for my Windows credentials, you may or may not need to do this step depending on the set-up of your windows machine.

Aftering entering the correct crendentials, I have full access to the local C drive on my Windows machine.